The Walter Tips Company Building
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
German native Walter Tips (1841-1911) migrated to the United States with his family in 1849 and served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. In 1872 he and his partners, Williams Clemens and Joseph Faust of New Braunfels, purchased the Austin hardware business of Tips' brother Edward who had died earlier that year. Walter later became sole proprietor. Located on the site of Edward's store, this company building was constructed in 1876-77. Designed by the noted Austin architect Jasper N. Preston, it features Victorian Italiante styling with Gothic details, an ornate cornice, carvings by local stonemasons, and side walls of limestone rubble. Interior cast iron columns on the ground fllor provided a large open commercial area. The third floor included a room for Masonic Lodge meetings and a 400-seat auditorium for use by the library association. Tips later served in the Texas Senate, 1893-96, and in other state government positions. An active civic leader, he also helped found the Austin National Bank. The Walter Tips Company remained here until 1927 and the building later housed other businesses. In 1978 Franklin Savings Association bought the structure and restored it for use as their home office. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
German-born Walter Tips came to America as a child in 1849 and, after Confederate service in the Civil War, took over his late brother's Austin hardware business in 1872. This handsome commercial block, designed by noted architect Jasper N. Preston and built in 1876–77, showcased Victorian Italianate style with Gothic touches, cast-iron interior columns, and an upper floor housing a Masonic lodge room and a 400-seat auditorium. Tips went on to the Texas Senate and helped found the Austin National Bank; his company occupied the building until 1927.
Why it matters
The building traces the arc of a Gilded Age merchant-civic leader—from hardware counter to state senate and bank boardroom—and shows how a single commercial structure could also serve as a town's lodge hall and public auditorium.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Walter Tips Company Building rose in 1876–77, during the years historians call the Gilded Age — a time of rapid commercial expansion after the Civil War, when American towns were remaking themselves in brick and stone. Austin was a young capital finding its footing, and a substantial commercial block like this one was a sign of confidence in the city's future.
This was also the era of the general hardware merchant, a figure central to any growing town. Before specialty stores, a hardware house supplied the tools, materials, and goods that let a community build itself — and the men who ran them often became civic pillars, their fortunes and their standing rising together with the town's.
The building's very design reflects the taste of its moment. Victorian Italianate styling, with its ornate cornices and rich ornamentation, was the fashionable choice for commercial architecture across post–Civil War America. That a leading Austin architect was engaged to design it tells you how much the enterprise mattered to the city.
People & events
Walter Tips was a German immigrant whose life traced the arc of his adopted country's nineteenth century. Born in 1841, he came to the United States with his family in 1849 as a boy, and as a young man served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. In 1872, after his brother Edward died, Walter and his partners — Williams Clemens and Joseph Faust of New Braunfels — purchased Edward's Austin hardware business. Walter would later become sole proprietor.
On the site of his late brother's store, he built this company building in 1876–77, hiring the noted Austin architect Jasper N. Preston. Preston gave it Victorian Italianate styling with Gothic details: an ornate cornice, carvings cut by local stonemasons, and side walls of limestone rubble. Inside, cast-iron columns on the ground floor opened up a broad commercial space, while the upper floors served the whole community — a room for Masonic Lodge meetings and a 400-seat auditorium used by the library association.
Tips himself became far more than a merchant. He served in the Texas Senate from 1893 to 1896, held other state government posts, and helped found the Austin National Bank. His company remained in this building until 1927; later tenants came and went until Franklin Savings Association bought and restored the structure in 1978 for its own home office. The building was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1980.
Its place in the American story
Walter Tips's life is a distinctly American story of arrival and ascent. An immigrant child who grew into a Confederate veteran, a hardware merchant, a state senator, and a bank founder, he embodies the path by which nineteenth-century newcomers wove themselves into the civic fabric of their communities. That trajectory — from the shop counter to the senate chamber and the bank boardroom — was the promise the era held out to enterprising men, and Tips lived it fully.
The building itself illustrates something that's easy to forget about growing American towns: a single structure often had to be many things at once. This one was a store, a lodge hall, and a public auditorium under one roof. Before towns had dedicated civic buildings, commercial blocks like this carried the community's shared life — its fraternal meetings, its library gatherings, its public assemblies.
And its later rescue and restoration in the 1970s reflects a national turn as well: the growing recognition that these Gilded Age commercial buildings were worth saving, not razing, as cities modernized.
If you visit
Give this building the slow, upward look it deserves. The ornate cornice and the Gothic detailing are the kind of craftsmanship that repays attention, and the carvings were cut by local stonemasons — human handiwork, not machine ornament. Notice the side walls of limestone rubble, a reminder of how such buildings were actually put together in the 1870s.
Inside, if you can see the ground floor, look for the cast-iron columns that let the original open commercial space breathe — an engineering solution that made a broad, uninterrupted store possible. Then let your imagination climb: the upper floors once held a Masonic lodge room and a 400-seat auditorium where the library association gathered. Picture the building humming with commerce below and community life above.
It sits in Austin's historic commercial core, so it fits neatly into a walking tour of the city's nineteenth-century architecture. Read the marker, then step back and take in the whole façade at once — it was built to impress passersby, and it still does the job.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Walter Tips
- · Jasper N. Preston
Themes & tags
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